Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Enjoy Dumpster Diving?

I was greeted at home this evening by a violation notice from NYC's Environmental Control Board -- aka the "garbage police." My building was fined $25 because one of my neighbors disposed of paper and cardboard in the trash instead of recycling those materials.

Here is the exact hand-written text on the violation notice dated 8:17pm on Aug 31:

"I did observe 3 white bags placed out for collection. Upon inspection found paper & cardboard mixed with household garbage."

16 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Your *building* was fined $25?

I don't know how many other residents are there, but if my building got the same fine once a week (and I'm sure we violate the same ordinance), that would be $25*52 = $1300/year roughly, or probably $10/family.

It's a small building and is home to three other families, so the fine effectively cost me $6.25.

If the garbage inspectors are paid $50 per hour with benefits (probably a generous guess), they only need to find 3 violations per hour to turn a tidy profit for NYC. (And some violations -- like leaving trash on the sidewalk on the wrong day -- are much more expensive.)

A few years ago, a new Sanitation Dept inspector on 16th street gave every single building one of these, every day for a week. The word was that he wan't to be taken off the posting, and we assume he was. Which is why The Wire is a management classic. Jonathan.Birchall@ft.com

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